Category:Team Manual

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Welcome to AFS!

The AFS Team Operations Manual was designed to be a helpful resource and reference guide for AFS teams throughout the U.S. Like any other manual, it isn’t intended to be memorized; rather you and your team should be aware of the topics covered so that you know where this information is should you ever need to refer to it. Please take a little time to familiarize yourself with the information contained within – it will save you time and help you do your AFS work in an informed manner.

Team Manuals are sent to team leadership volunteers in the fall each year. When leadership positions change within the team, you are asked to pass along the Team Manual to your successor. Manuals are updated annually, with updates being sent ready-to-insert in the binder you should already have. New Team Leaders will receive their manual in a notebook.

Each section of the manual is preceded by a brief explanatory page of why the document has been included and its relevance to the operation of a team. These documents have been compiled from a variety of sources and, wherever possible, those sources have been identified in order to provide context for the document’s contents and application to your AFS operations.

Acknowledgments

Contributors to the development of the Team Operations Manual have been many, some of whom we know and others whose names have, unfortunately, been lost or undocumented as we’ve “borrowed” from their good work throughout the years. To these unsung volunteers, we thank you for making AFS a better organization by caring enough to have added to the wealth of knowledge that our 50 years of experience has afforded us. Special thanks is owed to a group of individuals known as the Team Training Task Force, comprised of a small and enthusiastic group of volunteers and staff members who spent many hours determining what would be worth including in this manual and what was best left out. The dialogue that was exchanged among people who see this manual from different perspectives, has, we believe, resulted in a product that best meets the needs of team volunteers. We hope you agree!

The AFS Organization

While the AFS worldwide organization can appear large and complex, and hence somewhat distant from team-level activities, it is nevertheless important to understand the larger context in which you conduct your team programs. You, and volunteer groups like yours around the world, form the nucleus of the AFS structure whether it is regional, national, or even international. What we as volunteers do both individually and collectively can have enormous impact on fellow volunteers in the U.S. and abroad.

The following section is intended to give you background information about how all the various pieces of AFS fit together, as well as the common philosophy and standards that we are all working together to achieve. Starting with the Mission, the thread that weaves all of us in AFS together, we then provide a brief international overview that illustrates the diverse milieu in which that Mission and philosophy are carried out throughout the AFS world.

Finally, national and regional organizational charts are included to promote ease of access to appropriate staff members in the national or regional service centers.